Pete the Pirate, Various the Viking
by thewordiscool
Summary: Pete has no idea where he's going. Various has no idea how to get where he's going. Together, they make an awesome team


Pete was discontent as far as pirates go.

Not that he was unhappy with his position as a pirate - quite the opposite, in fact. His favorite times of day were those in which he cried "Ahoy!" or "Matey!" or some other nautical term. No, Pete's problem was simply that of direction.

For Pete had no idea where he was going.

All he could be absolutely certain of was that he was going somewhere. But, this didn't really help him when one of his crew would cry "Which way, cap'in?" For all he could do was mumble something vague and nod his head in a random direction.

His crew had no idea of his confusion and sailed the seas merrily, contented with their various riggings and their cat named Sam. They would cry "All for Cap'in Pete!" joyfully in unison whenever he would navigate a particularly precarious bay of rocks and would award him with drinks and claps on the back as he made his way to his cabin afterward. While scrubbing the deck, they would murmur tales of his former life - though they knew nothing of it, really - in awed tones and gasps.

The rather sad truth of the matter was, however, that Pete's former life was that of a coconut shaker. He refused to disclose his past to his crew, for he was painfully aware of its mendacity, and opted instead to say vague things like "I shook the trees" and "The economy flourished at my presence" (which was true, in some respects - when he first began his job, coconut net in hand and poking stick at the ready, the economy of Pago Pago was doing rather poorly. He neglected to mention the fact that oil was discovered on the island a month after his arrival.).

"SHIP AHOY!" came the cry from the starboard deck one salty afternoon. Pete lunged for his spyglass and was smacked in the face with a blue flag.

"What's this?!" he cried, for he was not used to surprises.

"You are in dangerous waters, pirate." said the burly man as he adjusted his Viking helmet.

________________________________________________________________________

Various was quite a troubled Viking.

He quite enjoyed sailing the seas and plundering the nearby villages. His only problem was that of location. For Various knew that he was supposed to be somewhere else. He just didn't know how to get there.

His motley crew consisted of members from his original village (A nice, clean town by the name of Sanswan whose tourist district wasn't doing as well as originally planned) and the occasional very confused hobo who had settled in a nice bed for the night only to find that it was sea-bound. His crew was quite an ambitious bunch - always striving to plunder and loot bigger and better cities without being caught (They even worked out a system where they wouldn't be noticed in the fair city of Changeling.). For Various was a new-age Viking.

He had joined the Viking business at a very young age (To be exact, it was at the age of seven when his ball bounced onto a ship which was just hoisting anchor.), only to find it a crude and generally unprofitable mish-mosh of ideas. For, whenever they would raid a town, the leaders would just run to the houses closest to shore and start rambling through the bureau drawers (where most people kept their money). This would upset the women (their personal clothing was being _pawed_ through) and the children (their toys were being _thrown_), but never the husbands (they preferred under the mattress). The women and children would then rouse the husbands, who would attack the Vikings, who would make off with _most_ of the cash, but not all. Various found this whole process tedious and extraneous.

He stayed mostly in eastern waters, around the tourist district of Dumpling (Where many a fancy vacation yacht would drift), simply because he wasn't sure how to get anywhere else. His crew didn't mind that much, considering the money was replenished by the tourists. They actually got a morbid sort of pleasure out of figuring out new ways to break into the safes (which, Various found, contained much more money than the bureau drawers), seeing as the combinations were reset every four days.

He had established his dominance over these waters straight off - taking the first foreign Viking that dared sail his waters and tying him to his own mast (and then proceeding to dance around it). Aside from the occasional lost fisherman, he hadn't had any trouble since then. He especially hadn't come across any pirates…

________________________________________________________________________

"Am I, now?" Pete countered, shifting his eye patch uncomfortably.

"Aye."

"That's my phrase!"

"I know - I thought you might be misunderstanding me."

"I'm not stupid, you know."

"Hard to tell, what with that eye patch and all…"

"You got a problem with my eye patch?!"

"BOYS!"

Both pirate and Viking turned to see a girl, about their age (for they were the same age, though it was rather hard to tell, what with the eye patch and all) sitting cross-legged atop Pete's finest cannon.

"That will be quite enough."

"Who are you?!" They chorused together. Pete scratched his head and Various took off his helmet so that he could see better (His helmet was a tad big and kept slipping over his eyes.).

"My name is no consequence."

"Too high-and-mighty to give us a name, eh?" Various grumbled, resting a booted foot on the wheel of the cannon.

"Does no one respect the cannon?!" Pete whined, flicking his sword at the offending boot.

"No, no. You misunderstand me. My name is 'No Consequence.' A rather cruel joke on my parents' part. You can simply call me 'Quinn.'" She offered a sideways smile and lept from her perch, landing soundlessly on the deck (To the great annoyance of one Seplekerk Spentin, a hardworking and rather out-of-control deck swabber.). "I have come to take over your ships."

________________________________________________________________________

Pete had never enjoyed being tied up. He had never relished the scratchy rope rubbing against his wrists, or the chain digging into his chest, or the burning humiliation that came with watching someone else do something that he would've done himself. This particular time, however, was the absolute worst. Not only had he been tied to a tree by a ridiculously skinny girl, but she had had the nerve to tie him and the Viking to the _same tree_. Pete decided that she had done this simply to annoy him after she smiled and waved from the prow of his ship as it began to sail away. She had chained Various' ship to the side of Pete's, so that they now rose and fell with the waves in harmony.

"Kind of makes you want to puke, eh?" Various mumbled from his side of the tree.

"Mostly just makes me want to bang my head on this tree for a good, solid hour." Pete groaned, leaning his head back on the scratchy bark. "Hey…This is a coconut tree!"

"Well, he does have a brain after all!"

"If that's how you feel, then I simply won't tell you my plan for escape." Pete tried to cross his arms, only to find himself in a rather awkward and terribly uncomfortable position.

"You have a plan for escape, eh?" Various sounded remotely interested now. "Let's have it, then."

"I'm not telling you."

"Listen, pirate, we can either stand here, tied to this tree, and await the arrival of the militia, or you can share your plan with the rest of us and we can retrieve our respective ships."

"Ok, first off, my name is Pete. And I really don't like that tone that you use when you say 'Pirate.' And, second - "

"Would you like to be alive when they untie you from this tree?"

"…What do you mean?"

"Well, I happen to have a rather handy maize tucked away in my pant leg. When we get untied from this tree, it would be a terrible shame if it were to escape and wrap about the tree, don't you think?"

"You have a maize in your pant leg?!"

"You heard me."

"Isn't that a bit uncomfortable?"

"You carry a cutlass."

"Of course! I'm a pirate!"

"And I'm a Viking."

"Point taken."

They stared out over the ocean, each mourning the loss of their respective ship, until Pete remembered something.

"Oh, yes. My plan."

________________________________________________________________________

After it was all said and done, Various didn't find the pirate's plan all that brilliant. However, he silently admitted, it was the only plan that they had and it worked. But it was still an altogether stupid plan.

"That," he grumbled, dusting sand off of his leather vest, "Was an altogether stupid plan."

"You're just mad because it worked."

"Using coconuts to render the militia unconscious and then stealing their swords shouldn't even be considered a plan."

"Hey, it took some very careful coconut-tree shaking to knock those guys out. Did you even see them? They were huge!"

"What? Where you afraid?"

"No. I just thought that you should know what an awesome feat that was." Pete huffed and leapt into the frigid ocean water, shivering a little as the shock registered.

"There is no way you are going to be able to catch up with your boat. I can't even see it on the horizon!"

"You forget, matey, that I am Pete the Pirate."

Various closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Please never call me that again."

"What? Matey? I'll call you matey whenever I want! I'm a pirate!"

"So you've said."

"Yeah."

Various sat in the sand and watched as Pete began to try to summon the sea turtles. It was, quite possibly, one of the most amusing spectacles he had ever been treated to. After about an hour of Pete's flailing and singing, however, Various stood up, dusted himself off, and marched to the nearest house to see what they kept in their bureau drawers.

________________________________________________________________________

"It's a dinghy."

"No. It's a raft."

"No. A raft is small and flat and wooden. This is a dinghy. A dinghy, by the way, that you seem to have stolen."

"_You_ have a problem with _me_ stealing something? What sort of pirate are you?"

"The best. And I only have a problem with it because it's a fisherman's _dinghy_ that smells funny and is taking on water."

"It is not taking on water. And it does not smell funny - it smells like fish."

"Fish smell funny."

"That's only because you are not a true pirate and aren't used to their smell!"

"I'm used to the smell - I just don't like it."

"Have it your way."

"Thank you. I will."

"But this is still a raft."

________________________________________________________________________

Seplekerk Spentin considered himself a very reasonable man.

All he asked of life was that there be not a spot on the deck nor a smudge on the windows. That was it, really. Aside from that, he was a fairly easy-going fellow. The only problem was that none of his ship mates had the chance to learn this, for keeping the deck spotless took up all of the day and a considerable part of the night. But, Seplekerk didn't really mind. He even enjoyed the task. He occupied himself, during his cleaning times, by humming old show tunes that he had picked up from various ports. He knew quite a few and had even taught some to Sam the Cat, though Sam refused to join him in his performances.

On that particularly sunny day, Seplekerk was on his hands and knees, armed with a rather large, soapy sea sponge, scrubbing furiously at a particularly stubborn spot on the starboard deck. He had turned to dunk his sponge in a bucket of suds, when he heard a great squishing of fabric, followed by two loud thuds.

"MMMHPH!" Seplekerk cried, for one of the bodies had landed on top of him.

"Oh. Sorry, mate!" Pete cried, clapping him on the shoulder.

"One of your crew, eh?" the other body harrumphed, eyeing Seplekerk haughtily.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Pete leapt to his feet and took the offensive.

Only then did Seplekerk notice that he was now covered in seaweed. He closed his eyes and lay very still, wishing it away, and stayed that way for a considerable amount of time.

"Did you boys get bored?" a twittering laugh floated down from the sails.

Pete and Various drew their respective weapons and glared up at Quinn, who had perched herself on the sail's horizontal support.

"We demand our ships." Various growled, shaking his maize.

"Oh dear me!" she put a hand over her mouth and gasped dramatically. "Whatever shall I do?"

"Give us our ships back, naturally!" Pete hoped that it sounded more menacing than he meant it.

Quinn slid down the mast and landed lightly on the deck (Seplekerk was still laying next to his suds bucket.). "Or, I could tie you both up _again_ and throw you in the prison cell below deck. How does that sound?"

"Like hell, actually." Pete had put quite a number of his own prisoners down there, and had always marveled at how it smelled exactly like fish.

"Well, at least you're an honest pirate."

Various let out a snort.

Pete whirled about. "I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that."

"But, it would be in vain, seeing how you obviously did hear it."

"It's an expression!"

"It's a stupid expression!"

"Well, excuse me for not knowing the Viking lingo!"

"We don't have a _lingo_! We just speak like normal human beings! However, you don't! And I know it's not just your pirate talk because Quinn…"

On mention of Quinn, both men turned towards where she had been a moment before, only to find that the deck was empty. Pete heard a low scratching noise and saw her just as she swung at him.

"HEY! THAT'S NOT VERY NICE!" he shouted, brandishing his own sword.

Quinn giggled and unwound a rope, using it to swing across the deck.

"AND IT'S NOT VERY LADY-LIKE EITHER!" Various roared, swinging his maize over his head.

Quinn's gleeful expression darkened and she pushed off the side of the ship, swinging straight for the fuming Viking. Pete leapt into the air and sliced at her rope, severing it from the sail. Quinn rolled onto the deck and Pete grimaced as his flag drooped in the wind.

"That wasn't very gentlemanly of you," she growled, pointing her sword at Pete's chest. A great ball of metal clanged against her weapon, sending it clattering to the deck.

"Thanks, mate!" Pete grinned as Various slowed the swinging of his maize.

The Viking simply pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"YOU'RE DEAD!" Quinn screamed, rushing towards her sword.

Pete's first battle was over in under a minute.

There was a great yelp as she stumbled over Seplekerk's limp body and stepped into the bucket of suds. It teetered and scooted from underneath her, sending her flying into the side of the boat. Seplekerk, suddenly aroused by this great new smudge on the woodwork, leapt from his supine position.

"GET IT OFF OF ME!"

"Well, matey, would you care to do the honors?" Pete began to uncoil some rope from about the mast.

"Only if you'll take her down to the prison cell."

Pete winced and adjusted his eye patch.

"I NEED SOAP NOW!"


End file.
